Why are so many people so sloppy in writing their CVs and Resumes?

Dominic, a fellow head hunter asks:As a headhunter I read a lot of CVs. Too many are very badly written, with poor grammar, really appalling use of multiple fonts, bad formatting, and occasionally we get blue CVs. Some CVs talk more of hobbies and interests, sport is particularly bad here, with some people giving the impression that they are sportsmen who occasionally take a break from running, skiing or hitting a ball to drop in to the office. CVs are important, yet many people do not put the effort into preparing a CV that they would to filling in a minor form.

In answer:It is a reflection of the modern through away society which has little memory – except, this time its their career they are playing with.

People don’t realise they need to change their attitude when they become a job seeker or applicant – they think we know how wonderful, great, superb, etc they are. The answer is – we would if you could portray yourself correctly, through the communications we review of you: your CV/Resume, your telephone manner, your letter writing and how often/when you interact with us.

Hence, all we see as Recruiters and HR people is the result of that unchanged attitude – poor presentation at multiple levels, and cliched phrases cut and pasted from some online freebie web guidance site, or hastily copied from their best friend. Yes, I have had an applicant who claimed to be both an expert diver in the resume, and yet in interview admitted their greatest fear was swimming – they had simply taken the soft copy of their best friends resume, and just inserted their name and high school!

When even the world’s worst speller can learn in 30 seconds how turn on spell check – is it any wonder that your application is turned down when you can’t? It just reads to us on the reviewing side not as a spelling mistake, but as “I don’t care about me or my career!”